


Red, Red, Red

by evarosen



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3443024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evarosen/pseuds/evarosen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stein works stitches on everything he owns. Spirit is no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red, Red, Red

Stein knows every scar on Spirit's body.

He even put at least half of them there, Spirit muses, with a smile that would be more at home on his friend's face.

Stein's own history of marks, in the other hand, is a total mystery.

At least for him, he thinks, as he watches the neat, slim line that circles Stein's right arm.

He imagines Stein carving into his own arm, red liquid pouring down, all the attention that was once his, though he was never awake to see it.

"Thank God", he whispers, shuddering slightly; and still part of him feels disappointed.

When he snaps out of it Stein is watching him, a small frown on his face. He turns around, sees the two young women walking, giggling, past the window behind him, and then shakes his head at Spirit and turns his attention back at the hallway, where the kids' voices can still be heard.

Spirit excuses himself and leaves. Stein's eyes feel just as piercing on his back as they always were.

* * *

 

_Kami leaned and kissed him goodbye._

_After she left, he saw Stein staring at him, with a thoughtful, cold expression. "_

_What?" "_

_You didn't shy away from her," Stein said. His tone was almost accusing._

_Spirit frowned as well. It hadn't occurred to him to have to explain girls to Stein (he'd though him old enough to already know), and he was damned if he was going to get saddled with the task. "_

_Why...well, it's not as if she's of any danger to me."_

_Stein reached for his shoulder, and Spirit unconsciously recoiled. "I'm no danger for you either, one may think." "_

_Why, do you want to touch me?" Spirit teased, but his meister merely shook his head, unamused._

_"It's the principle of the thing, you see." He said, serious. "We're supposed to be a team."_

_"I know that." Spirit said, soothingly. "We're friends."_

_Stein didn't answer._

_Spirit would remember that, tracing the stitches on his chest, in front of the mirror._

_Stein didn't bother to lie._

_He was a practical boy._

* * *

 

He'd sworn he'd never sleep on Stein's proximity again, and he was keeping his word. Kind of.

He lays awake, Stein's long, pale fingers lightly tracing the scars on his chest, humming with nervous energy that he can't seem to control.

"Stop that", he says, and Stein ceases at once, gets up and dressed before Spirit can blink the tiredness out of his eyes.

He walks to the lab's door to see Stein hunched over his desk, the light of the lamp turning the blood on his fingers bright as he writes.

He watches long enough to make sure the form over the dissection table is too small to be human, before he catches himself running his own fingers over the same place Stein had.

At least his needlework had been tidy.

* * *

 

_Stein's hands were restless over the pages of the book he was consulting._

_He touched them with a a sort of soft deference, as if they would fall apart under his fingertips._

_Spirit remembered noticing that, on the library, soon after they were paired together._

_Before that, the strength of his grip the first time they shook hands had taken him by surprise, too._

_After having been tripped on a few times when they crossed paths between classes (Stein's nose behind some paper or other, and he would get run over sometime if he kept that up), or unceremoniously grabbed by the arm and dragged to the library, Spirit reached the conclusion Stein was only careful with his books._

_Later he would add test subjects to that list._

_He should have known better when Stein started asking him if he'd sleep or eaten well._

* * *

 

Everything Stein owns is covered on stitches.

Spirit looks at his own shattered reflection on what's left of the bathroom mirror, the red of his hair mixing with the remnants of Stein's blood on the broken glass, as he listens to Marie's worried words.

_did you use a mirror?_ , he'd asked, weaving at Stein's face.

_of course_ , Stein had said, his unsettling smile as firmly in place as his cigarette, _what's the point if you can't see it?_

Stein liked to tear apart his things, but he would always put them back together.

His weapon was no exception.

"I trust him," Spirit says, and it's not a lie.

He knows Stein.

Perhaps it means something different of what he once thought it meant, but it's the truth.


End file.
